BLOG: Expedition to the highest lake in the world - Climbing higher

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VALLECITOS, ARGENTINA - Mount Franke is a giant rock pile. Some of the rocks are attached to the mountain. Many, many others are not. The loose rocks are engaged in slow tumble down the mountainside. Hikers often help them along.

Expedition leader Francisco Seufferheld tells us that climbers who hope to climb South America's highest peak, Aconcagua, often train on Mount Franke because the terrain is very similar - a series of rock heaps leading ever higher.

The upper slopes vary in steepness. My guess is that the slopes vary between 25 and 50 degrees.

This climb was a test - not only of our ability to climb and adjust to the altitude, but also of our mental fortitude and capacity for team work. More tests lie ahead.

Acclimatization to very high altitudes takes time and a lot of grit.

"You'll carry a load of gear high and then go back down to sleep at a lower elevation, and then leapfrog as you go up the mountain, said Art Kramer, the director of the Beckman Institute at the University of Illinois and an experienced climber. "What most people don't realize is you really climb the mountain twice."

This is our strategy. We are pretty well acclimatized to life at 2,080 meters, the elevation of Francisco and Jeannine's home in Piedras Blancas. But as we approached 4,000 meters on Mount Franke, my blood oxygen saturation dipped below 80 percent and my heart rate was 135 beats per minute. I wasn't gasping for air but I was breathing loudly.

"Breathe in when you step with your left foot, and out when you step with your right," Francisco said.

When we get to the highest altitudes on Ojos del Salado, we'll take two breaths for every step, he said.

We had planned more treks to higher altitudes in the same mountains, but other hikers coming down from El Salto, one of our intended high-altitude destinations, reported avalanches and rock falls. We could see the evidence from Mount Franke, which offers a bird's eye view of El Salto. The snow-covered slopes had vertical scratches in them from rock falls.

El Niño dropped lots of snow on these mountains late into the Spring and the snow is only just now beginning to melt. Francisco was going to train us to use our ice axes and crampons in El Salto, but that plan had to be abandoned.

The Mount Franke climb was the longest, and most arduous yet. It took us 10 hours to go up and get back down the mountain to our campsite. Then we ate a snack, broke down the camp and hiked back down to our car.

According to my husband's sports tracker, he expended 5,780 calories on Mount Franke and another 560 calories on the hike back to the car. Francisco pointed out that the app did not account for the additional weight of the pack (30 to 40 pounds?).

Today we are eating a lot, sleeping a lot, and organizing our gear for the bigger trek to Ojos del Salado.